NIN Confirms Uploads to Public and Private Torrent Sites
The acceptability of P2P took another big step forward over the weekend, as accounts claiming to be ‘the official profile for NIN’ appeared on a number of torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay and the private trackers What.cd and Waffles.fm. NIN has now confirmed that these accounts indeed belong to the band.
The account that was used to upload the torrent, linked to in yesterday’s piece, was from a user called ‘NINofficial‘, and included a text about the release. Similar accounts, named NIN, appeared on the private music trackers what.cd and waffles.fm on Friday, and uploaded the same torrent.
Uploads to torrent sites, claiming to be from the owners of the material are not unheard of, but are also not common. When it has happened, it’s been to public sites, and generally a hoax, which makes people all the more wary when accounts appear, claiming to be ‘official’ or from the people behind it.
However, TorrentFreak has verified that the accounts in question, ‘NIN’ on both waffles and what, and ‘NINOfficial’ on The Pirate Bay, are indeed accounts belonging to the band’s representatives.
“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”
“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added. Many sites, too are willing to work with artists with programs such as Mininova’s content distribution platform and What.cd’s ‘Vanity House’.
It is not sure how NIN got invited to both OiNK replacements what.cd and waffles.fm, however, since Trent Reznor himself admitted to be a frequent user of OiNK, he probably signed up at the trackers from the start, and invited the official NIN user.
Of course, not everyone gets this, some news sites have been reporting that the accounts are bogus, or that the torrents, including the official ones, are stealing. An admin of one of the private tracker did have a sobering comment though “It doesn’t help that the full version is available as well on music torrent sites in general.”
screenshot of the official NIN profile at what.cd
Previously: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk9)
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88 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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[quote comment="303857"]nin suck balls anyway!………..I guarantee not even 1% of the people that download it will ever purchase any of there music……..they’ll soon realise that.[/quote]
Yea I previewed few files & cancelled the torrent download…wht childish arrangement of music…like a kid banging on a keyboard. And $5 for whole stuf…thtz a scam to sell this subpar album. Oh! $5 free on torrent…lets support…viva la revolucion…n u buy sumthing which normally u wudnt hav.
But there torret endorsement is a positive sign. JUST CUT A GOOD ALBUM NIN. THIS ONE IS CRAP.
Thank you NIN. You are a clear, well though out idea in a wasteland where good ideas are shut down by individuals who can’t think for themselves. I paid the $5 for the download, I hope NIN sees every penny, they should be rewarded for what they do, and should be entitled to all the profits. They wrote the music, they recorded the music, they marketed the album, they distributed the album, they have the rights over THEIR own music. It’s time the ARTIST had control over their art, not some label that controls what the artist can and cannot do with his own creations.
And to think that soon, corporations will be in control of the content on the internet and other artists will not be able to follow suit. Enjoy these last few months or years of net neutrality while you can.
Everyone just has to have FLAC?
Can you hear that much of a difference between a high bitrate mp3 and flac?
Face it: At high bitrates, most of the sound lost in an mp3 is just extremely high and low frequencies that no human ear can possibly hear I bet a lot of the difference you notice is all in your head. For me, the choice is clear: I’d much rather have a 256kbs mp3 (or even better, an ogg), rather than some huge wav file or flac filling up my hard drive (I’d still pay trent the five bucks though..he seems like a nice fellow).
I do make an exception remixing the music however… Its always good to work with uncompressed audio when your editing a recording, so that you don’t loose as much quality when you compress it down.
Shame the album is a bit shit…
NIN rocks!
Great music, I’m really glad they upload their music.
thanx
It is now clear that torrents will be the future distribution medium of the 21st century. The RIAA will soon be no more! As Artists will undoubtedly neglect the middleman and produce/distribute their own material.
Posted here and elsewhere, an open letter to NIN:
[quote]
Trent. Long time fan here. Congratulations, you’ve made a monster.
Angsty?? It’s WONDERFUL. Let’s review:
1 You undercut the Russian MP3 sites.
2 You cut the obvious overhead of **AA etal legal shenanigans.
3 Pirate Bay users are scolding each other into buying the download.
4 Your website is being HAMMERED. As in what Rupert Murdoch would LOVE to happen to MySpace.
5 Each. Song. Different. Cover. It’s a little thing, and yet different / big. Kudos to (A + R).
These are all good things. I think the only bad thing is that now that I’ve bought GHOSTS [with the songfiles, extras, etc] now I want all the products — the few Halos I don’t have [like Year Zero] done up this way.
This is the way it SHOULD HAVE BEEN all along… as I said in the beginning.. you’ve made a monster.
[/quote]
from
http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options
” $300 - Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package
We have SOLD OUT of the 2500 Limited Edition Packages.”
and who said you cant make money releasing music online. wounder how many that went and bought the other offers…
The recording industry is being dragged into the 21st century by their hair, kicking and screaming. We should welcome it, rather than rag on Reznor for being angsty and whiny.
Look people, the stuff we’re after is free distribution of cultural products, right? Stuff that’s part of the culture that someone made, or was made as part of something else. Disintermediation of the traditional distribution channels is one part of the process IMO.
Also hey, could this reply box be made a little wider? We could get some quality discussion going if people were able to review just what they just wrote…
still looking for an invite for what.cd or wafflesfm… :S
email : murdoclu@gmail.com
I would love a invite to what.cd or waffles.fm
email vwfsu at hotmail.com
I was going to buy the 300 dollar delux version, but by the time I got that much money in my bank account, [10 hours later], all 2500 copies were sold out. So I settled for the 10 dollar CD set.
NIN, great work with this, however I dont think It is feasible for the entire music market. Its too ‘trendy’.
Yeah, I spent the $5 and bought the album.
Trent rocks .
I bet he gave to the OiNK fund.
This is simply amazing, and go figure Trent is the first one to do it. He is really a god among us mortals :P
Hopefully we’ll see some more high profile bands bite the bullet and post their albums online.
I know that I will buy the full album for 5$!
Viva la revolution!
I must say that the Register’s reporter seems way out of touch with what is really happening. Reznor didn’t lose “$160,000 income in the past 12 hours” at all. His band made a ton of money from the paid-for versions, and won a great deal of respect for utilizing this new business model. The pirated versions have been downloaded by people who weren’t queuing up to buy the record anyway. They wouldn’t have paid a cent no matter what price NiN set. There is the likelihood that some downloaders may like the music and then download illegal copies of previous (and better) NiN records, but even then, the only loser would be the record companies that released them. If Trent hadn’t released these recordings at such a fair price, and generated the publicity, none of these so-called “Freetards” would be downloading anything. This is why the “it’s stealing” claim is always wrong. You can’t claim someone has taken money from you if you never actually had the money guaranteed in the first place. It is outrageous that the “exclusive licences” obtained by RIAA companies are treated as a guarantee of income. Just because you put a CD on the shelves doesn’t mean we have to pay for it!
@36
it sold out in around 23 hours.
@54
I have high-quality headphones that really make the FLAC/MP3 difference noticable.
@67
I haven’t seen a single “pirated” version of this yet.
The only way to “pirate” this is if you tried to SELL it.
Those full torrents are entirely legal, even the torrent descriptions tell you why.
I just don’t have enough great things to say about this.
I think I’ve commented on the other Torrentfreak articles concerning this release but I’m really please that NIN decided to take this route. I’ve been hyping this release model for years and it’s good to see it working. It goes to show that you can still sell plenty of albums, the bands can still make plenty of money, and the fans can listen to the music for free if they so choose (more people for the live concerts anyway). This is a good business model for real bands because they can’t easily put out an album of pure bullshit and get away with it because we get to hear it first. Awesome.
Now when is the sequel to The Downward Spiral due? That’ll always be my favorite album of all time.
Same here, need an invite to waffles.fm and what.cd
constantinehb@yahoo.com
Thanks in advance!
And ever since the “mysterious” leak of the closure DVDs, we all know Trent is all for file sharing… ;)
I am not a NIN fan but I am for this method of distributing music so I went and paid for the download. I was pleasantly surprised to find I really like the album. But that was just a plus for me. My whole point was to support the artists. I hope we all try to donate something anytime an artist does this. I would like nothing more than seeing the RIAA go down in flames for all the nasty things they have done and continue to do.
This album is really incredible, not what I expected but great just the same.
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